studio notes . . .

I set up a special project for this year's Edisto stay. With a Strathmore 500 series softcover art journal I had a plan to create a kind of resource book that I could reference throughout the year. I had no set goals for what it would include in terms of the type of images, only that I wanted to use it to collect visual impressions of that island environment.

With the goal of two page spreads per day I wanted to completely fill the book during our two week stay, which I did. I used a variety of media for this book, watercolor,watercolor pencils and crayons, graphite, grease pencil, white gouache, and a bit of ink. In places I intentionally left space to paste in small photos once we returned home.

While some page spreads were used to record a specific location,

on others I experimented with my responses to the place in a more abstracted way. I made a few notes on the last page about the experience of completing this project. What I discovered by doing this book:1. I enjoyed filling pages with responses to this environment more than making illustrative "artist journal" pages.2. Circular forms. I had expected abstracting this landscape would be all about horizontals but I became more interested in the circular forms found in the surf, shells, arcing palm fronds...3. Prussian Blue. Not Phthalo Turquoise or much Ultramarine. Prussian Blue.4. Blues, grays, yellow/gold and white.

​Below I have put together a slide show of selected pages from my Edisto sketchbook.

Ann,
This is absolutely beautiful and incredible. It is such a treasure you'll be able to pull from anytime you want to because all the sensations will come flooding back to you. Forgive me, I know you already realize all this. Beautiful, beautiful work Ann.